Charities have condemned footage of far-right activist Daniel Thomas using a blade to slash an inflatable dinghy in the Channel while a rescue worker was onboard, in a further escalation of organised anti-immigration protest.
Hundreds of protesters gathered early on Tuesday evening at Gosport in Hampshire, aiming to disrupt the planned disembarkation of asylum seekers, but the Border Force vessels carrying them landed instead in Dover early on Wednesday.
Thomas, who styles himself as Danny Tommo, spent Tuesday afternoon in a small boat on the Channel, filming himself as he tracked two dinghies carrying asylum seekers from France to the UK.
As rescue workers assisted them on to rescue boats, Thomas approached one of the dinghies, shouting: “Let’s get rid of that boat.”
The black inflatable dinghy was full of dozens of lifejackets, recently left by the passengers. As Thomas drew close to the vessel, a rescue worker wearing an orange hi-vis outfit and yellow helmet stepped into the boat from the larger rescue boat.
In footage livestreamed to ۱۰۰,۰۰۰ viewers, Thomas filmed himself stabbing a knife into the inflatable dinghy several times and slashing its side. The noise of escaping air was audible, and Thomas shouted: “This is England. This is not France any more.”
Spotting that there was a rescue worker onboard, Thomas shouted: “Get off the boat. You’ve got time to get off the boat.” Thomas shouted to his colleagues: “Let’s go lads. Let’s go” and his boat motored away before the rescue worker climbed back on to the larger boat.
The stream did not show what happened to the rescue worker.
His action was condemned as violent and dangerous by the refugee charity, the Joint Council for Welfare of Immigrants. Stand Up to Racism posted on X: “Danny Tommo already has a conviction for knife crime. The footage of him going wild with a knife and slashing a boat with [an emergency worker] on it in the Channel today is disgusting.”
Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary said it was conducting inquiries into the boat-slashing incident. It said officers had made six arrests for offences including assaulting an emergency worker and aggravated trespass. All six people were in custody on Tuesday night.
According to RNLI, the rescued asylum seekers had been in the water for ۳۶ hours, which is thought to be the longest time small boats passengers have spent crossing the Channel.
RNLI said that there were concerns for their deteriorating health and fears of a “catastrophic failure” of their dinghy. The French coastguard said about ۶۰ migrants on a small boat spent more than ۳۳ hours at sea “in precarious conditions”, refusing help as they were “determined to take all risks to reach the United Kingdom”.
The RNLI later facilitated their transfer to a Border Force vessel.
Thomas, who spent two years in prison for attempted kidnapping, has this summer gathered dozens of nationalist protest groups under the umbrella movement Patriot Platform. He used social media to call on followers to head to Gosport for ۷pm to stage a protest at the expected arrival site.
Hundreds of people turned out in Gosport, and others also gathered near the Haslar immigration removal centre, an unopened detention site. Scores of police vans and dozens of police officers blocked off roads. It was later confirmed the asylum seekers had been taken away from Hampshire by a Border Force boat to Dover, a ۱۰۰-mile sea voyage away.
Gosport local Dave Palmer, ۴۳, was among the protesters. “We don’t want them in the country at all. They get given everything. I work ۷۰ to ۸۰-hour weeks as an air-conditioning engineer. What does the government give me? Nothing,” he said.
A number of men wearing black, several with face coverings, arrived at the front of the protest with chants of “Send them back” from the crowd. The protesters in black remained quiet as they lined up face-to-face with the police officers.
Donna Jones, the police and crime commissioner for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, said she had urged Border Force to transfer the migrants to Dover. “Hampshire is not prepared or set up to process people travelling into Britain this way, and the burden on the police to deal with the arrival and potential protest activity is unsustainable,” she said.
Following targeting by far-right agitators, RNLI emphasised that its role was not a political one: “When tasked by HM Coastguard we will rescue anyone in trouble at sea, as we have been doing for more than ۲۰۰ years, without judgment or preference.”
A government spokesperson said: “The Border Security Command works around the clock to protect our border and will continue to detain, check and process every small boat arrival.”
Additional reporting by Solent News
